Many forced to fly solo, even on family vacations

NEW YORK — If you’re flying this summer, be prepared to kiss your family members goodbye at the gate — even if they’re on the same plane.

Airlines are reserving a growing number of window and aisle seats for passengers willing to pay extra. That’s helping to boost revenue but also making it harder for friends and family members who don’t pay this fee to sit next to each other. At the peak of the summer travel season, it might be nearly impossible.

Buying tickets two or more months in advance makes things a little easier. But passengers are increasingly finding that the only way to sit next to a spouse, child or friend is to shell out $25 or more, each way.

With base fares on the rise — the average roundtrip ticket this summer is forecast by Kayak.com to be $431, or 3 percent higher than last year — some families are reluctant to cough up more money.

Mr. Bouaphanh balked at paying an extra $114 roundtrip in fees to reserve three adjacent seats for him, his wife and their 4-year-old daughter on an upcoming trip to Disney World. “I’m hoping that when we can get to the counter, they can accommodate us for free,” he says.

Airlines say their gate agents try to help family members without adjacent seats sit together, especially people flying with small children. Yet there is no guarantee things will work out.

Not everyone is complaining.

Frequent business travelers used to get stuck with middle seats even though their last-minute fares were two or three times higher than the average. Now, airlines are setting aside more window and aisle seats for their most frequent fliers at no extra cost.

A recent search showed on a July flight from Dallas to San Francisco on American that only 28 of 144 coach seats available for passengers unwilling to pay extra. Of those, 21 were middle seats. There were five spots where a couple could sit together; groups of three or more were out of luck.

It was dramatically different for elite frequent fliers. They could pick from 75 seats including nine rows with four or more seats together.

Another flight — New York to Los Angeles on Delta — offered its most loyal fliers almost twice as many seats for free: 111 versus 60.

“The customers that are more loyal, who fly more often, we want to make sure they have the best travel experience,” says Eduardo Marcos, American Airlines manager of merchandising strategy.

For everybody else, choosing seats on airline websites has become more of a guessing game.

To travelers who haven’t earned “elite” status in a frequent flier program, flights often appear full even though they are not. These casual travelers end up paying extra for an aisle or window seat believing they have no other option.

Airlines are searching for more ways to raise revenue to offset rising fuel costs. In the past five years, they have added fees for checked baggage, watching TV, skipping security lines and boarding early. Now they are turning to seats.

“Airlines have to be careful. They can only push this so far before they risk incurring the wrath of customers or the government,” says Henry Harteveldt, co-founder of Atmosphere Research Group.